


Active Dissonance

by homsantoft (tofsla)



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, COUNTER/Weight - Freeform, F/F, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 01:53:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14739830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla/pseuds/homsantoft
Summary: Jacqui and Aria run into each other as rival mercenaries more than twice, and manage to develop some inconvenient habits.





	Active Dissonance

**Author's Note:**

> This one's another prompt piece, blame shared between The Other Eli and also Poetry, the former for the ship and the latter for the prompt, which was: "au where they hatefuck while they're still rival bounty hunters"

Shoulder to the wall, pinned hard, metal on plasterboard. A deadened thud. Aria's head falls back heavily, the impact jarring, pain flaring. For a moment she's waiting for the explosion, waiting for the damage assessment, but that's not—

It's not the game right now. No gel, just an unforgiving open palm. 

"You're still soft, Joie," Jacqui says, and Aria grasps for her—with that metal arm, metal fingers, the shoulder joint resisting for a second where Jacqui's hand is still pressed to it, shit, shit, but then—

She gets her fingers into the join between metal and skin on Jacqui's shoulder, bared by her tank top—flexes her hand sharply, digging in so that Jacqui hisses, gasps—loosens her grip—

Aria sweeps her leg out, a sharp side-swipe, and Jacqui staggers, one knee going out from under her, sending her weight forward against Aria, who shoves down on her shoulders until her knee is pressed to the floor. Plush carpet in an anonymous hotel room. The former occupant is dead in an alley a block away, and also, before that, was a pretty awful person, even if her death has dented Aria’s upcoming paycheque a bit. Too many layers of falsification around her ID for anyone to come looking here just yet. Too few people interested in looking, now the job’s done. Still a stupid impulse—still a wild one—a chase, nearly, across rooftops for the sake of some gear she left behind here or for the sake of—

Jacqui grunts against Aria’s stomach. A hand hard on her hip. That’s going to bruise and the bruise is going to show through her tights below the high arch of her bodysuit and Aria is flying, just like that—

“I’m three for two,” she says. “What does that make you, huh?”

“Pissed,” Jacqui says, and presses two fingers up hard between Aria’s legs, so that Aria cries out, her underwear dragging against her clit, dragging slickly between the lips of her labia, a sudden shock of contact. It jolts her forward—hands tight on Jacqui’s shoulders—

Job after job after job, always in each other’s ways. Sometimes it’s just like that. Sometimes it’s the worst anyway, someone who really gets under your skin in a bad way. Sometimes it’s someone as hot as Jacqui and then you can have a good time—

“Your penalty,” she says, and her voice isn’t so much commanding as breathy. “Get on the bed. Since we’ve got one.”

Usually she eats Jacqui out in a storage room or something, Jacqui’s grip on her hair so hard she could cry. Has Jacqui finger her and mouth at her breasts without getting even half way out of her clothing. Makes do. But here they are.

She’s never seen Jacqui properly naked before, because that’s not what this is. Oh, she _thinks_ about it. Maybe too much. But—

She can only shove Jacqui down on the bed with one hand because Jacqui lets her, and that’s dangerous enough. More would be pushing both their luck—

Fuck it—

“Strip,” she says, and that doesn’t come out as much of a command either, her voice wavering, but Jacqui _does_ it. Drags her tank top over her head, and apparently she’s not wearing a bra, oh god, Aria is going to die.

“I don’t know how you live like that,” she says, though obviously the answer is that some people have conveniently compact breasts. Leans over to take one of Jacqui’s nipples between her fingers, twist at it, pinch—Jacqui arches her back, fingers clenching in the fabric of her pants where she’s hurrying to get them unfastened. 

Jacqui is breathy now too when she swears over a button that doesn't want to come free, and that makes Aria feel better about her own entire situation, the unsteadiness in her voice, the wetness between her legs that she can’t ignore now that Jacqui’s made sure it spreads. 

"Fuck, I want to tear that stupid outfit off you," Jacqui hisses—shoves her pants and underwear down over her hips in a rough quick movement, kicks them off—her stomach muscles are tight—her nipples hard. Tattoos curl down one side of her body, and Aria leans down to scratch her nails over them, until Jacqui hisses again, wordless now.

They mean something, don't they. Something secret. They're not that old, the colours clear. Maybe something to do with the woman AuDy threw out of a spaceship, back when Jacqui first started being a pain in the ass wherever the Chime turned. Maybe something to do with a job or a memory or—

It doesn't matter.

Aria's outfits are always easy to get out of. Costume changes are cute.

"You don't have to be like that," she says. Throws a leg across Jacqui's thigh to kneel over her, naked.

It feels weird. Weird to be stripped down like this, in front of Jacqui's defiant stare. An uneasy prickling awareness of every part of herself, every curve and bone and mark. She's not sure she likes it. She's not sure she _doesn't_ like it.

"You're the one hate-fucking someone who just threw your employer out a window," Jacqui says. A quick unreadable flicker to her expression. "I'll be however I like, darling. Your crew know what you do on the job? You're such a _bad girl_."

She can just _imagine_ how horribly tired Cass would look if they knew. It's almost funny.

"Shut up," she says. Grabs Jacqui's thigh, nails digging in hard enough to mark and then a bit harder. Shoves her legs apart, and slides forward, hip to hip—grinds _down_. Coarse hair against her clit. Her own wetness smearing across Jacqui. A finger slipped between them makes Jacqui's body jerk, and when Aria spreads her lips with two fingers and then grinds down again she yells, slams her hand down closed-fisted against the mattress, head thrown back.

Aria bites her own lip, shuddering. Jacqui is really, really wet already, as wet as she is, and the slick noises it makes when she rocks against Jacqui should probably be funny but instead she's just going to lose her mind, maybe, any moment now. Has to bring a hand up to finger one of her own nipples, sending a new wave of heat jolting straight down between her legs, a stab straight through the stomach. Okay—okay—she can get off like this—get off on the obscene slide of their cunts against each other, the sharp slivers of pleasure she can get from playing with her own breasts, no need to get closer than this, a little bit of distance, it's fine, it's good, she can feel it building in her already—

Jacqui's finger against her clit makes her scream, the metal warm and smooth and humming with power, not a vibration but a faint shiveriness to it as the mechanics work and shift—she slams her hands down on Jacqui's shoulders—loses contact, clit throbbing urgently against Jacqui's thigh now, Jacqui's finger still pressed to it mercilessly as she comes.

Jacqui has a finger inside her before she's done, fucking her through it until she's screaming again, thrusting down through the overstimulation, clawing at Jacqui, blood under her nails, her hair falling over Jacqui's face and Jacqui just laughing about it.

Throwing Aria onto her back, pushing a finger back into her so that Aria arches helplessly, heel kicking at Jacqui's hip, too much, too much, never enough. "Just the one?" she asks, cries out as Jacqui goes straight for three, knows Aria well enough to know how easily she loosens up. Aria's _let_ Jacqui know her that well. Stupid mistake.

"You want to do all the work yourself, you can fuck yourself on my fingers," Jacqui says, stills—

Aria swears, at Jacqui stopping just as pain was starting to shift back into pleasure, at herself for the way pleasure sharpens in her at that—

Throws her legs around Jacqui's waist, hooked over her hips, lifting her own hips clear off the bed—shoves up hard, crying out open-mouthed, again, again, again—hands clenching on nothing—she presses her knuckles to her mouth—not so much to muffle herself as to have something against her lips—

Her second orgasm is weak and stuttering and long and Jacqui gives her space, a kind of relief, a kind of disappointment, her cunt clenching around nothing, her body unreal, her breathing quick and harsh.

Jacqui is looking at her kind of weirdly when she comes down enough to focus properly.

"I'm going to go shower," she says. 

"You don't want—"

Jacqui hesitates. The insides of her thighs are a mess. Her pupils are blown wide. Her mouth is uneasy

"Don't sweat it," she says. "You wanted your fun, you got it."

"Okay, now you're just being weird."

They don't always both get off, but that's just about speed, about getting done and getting back to whatever it was they're meant to be doing.

"Fuck off," Jacqui says, but she doesn't move to get up, and she sounds more tired than angry. 

“Uh,” Aria says. “Hey—“

It’s another one of her stupid impulses that has her stretching out a hand to Jacqui, and a shock when Jacqui takes it—seems more to fall forward over Aria than allow herself to be led.

“Don’t even worry about it,” she says. “Stupid job anyway.” A deep breath. A sigh. “Okay. Want to get back to it?”

Aria looks up at her. There’s something else in here. A lot of stuff, maybe. Hate-fucking someone who threw your employer out a—oh. 

A body falling, and falling, and falling.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Look—we could just—“

“What, cuddle?”

“I was thinking get drunk.”

“Oh my god,” Jacqui says. “Aria fucking Joie is asking me out on a date.”

She’s muted, her heart not in the attempted jab.

Aria waits her out. Exposed, again, in the weirdest way. There’s an uncomfortable space opening in her chest. She feels hollow and sore, loose and empty between her legs. It’s pretty likely she’s just going to be left like this, wrecked on a hotel bed and stuck with the knowledge that she maybe kinda doesn’t just like Jacqui because Jacqui could kill her. 

“Sure,” Jacqui says finally. Slowly. “Sure. Ok. I could do with being drunk.”

She pushes herself up, swings herself off the bed. Grimaces.

“Gonna shower first anyway,” she says, rubs at the back of her head. Her face is turned away. “You coming with or what?”


End file.
